Here's a tip I got from my repairman when he came to do the yearly maintenance on my clothes dryer. He said to take the lint screen out of the dryer and get all the lint off of it. Then take it to the sink and run water over it. Most likely the water will bead up on it. If it does, then do the following: squirt some dish soap on it (Dawn is best for this). Then take a scrub brush and wet it and scrub the screen all over on both sides. Rinse well, dry and put back in the dryer.
He said to do this about once a month, but I usually do it once a week. It only takes a couple of minutes to do, but it will prolong the life of your dryer by years. Plus it'll save on your electric bill because it won't take so long to dry things.
I've been doing this for 2 years now and my 12 year old dryer is running like a new one!
I always remove the lint from the filter after every dryer load. However, this seemed like a good tip for additional cleaning and I finally tried it. After a gentle scrubbing with foam soap and brush, the regular removal of lint is much faster, easier, and more thorough. This was a super tip, thanks!
At least once a year you should take the time to inspect where the air from your dryer blows out of. Ours happens to be on top of the house, so we get on top of the roof to remove any lint that has accumulated. My boyfriend got rid of a perfectly good dryer because he failed to check the lint trap as well as the air exit point. The new dryer wouldn't dry the clothes, so I asked him where the air from the dryer comes out. I myself went up and pulled out massive amounts of lint. A fire waiting to happen! Not to mention the purchase of a new dryer that wasn't really needed. The old one just had a hard time breathing LOL
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Tip: Clean Lint Trap To Improve Dryer Efficiency (08/19/2009)
Does your clothes dryer take longer than it should to dry your clothes when set on auto-dry? Ours would be running when we got up in the morning.
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Tip: Clean Lint Trap To Improve Dryer Efficiency
Archived on 08/19/2009
Does your clothes dryer take longer than it should to dry your clothes when set on auto-dry? Ours would be running when we got up in the morning. It had run all night! Remove the lint filter, and take it to the sink. Wash it gently with soap and water. Rinse well. Problem solved!
By Grandma Jo from Louisville, KY
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RE: Clean Lint Trap To Improve Dryer Efficiency
The lint trap should be emptied after every load. A build up of lint is a fire hazard. (A lot of people use lint as a firestarter when camping!) You don't have to use soap and water each time. Once a year I actually open up the dryer where the lint trap and vent is and vacuum it out. It's amazing how much of a difference it makes! (11/05/2008)
I always make sure that our dryer isn't running when I go to bed, and if my husband is up later than I am, I always tell him to make sure that it is off before he goes to bed. (11/05/2008)
You can thank your lucky stars it did not burn your house down. When the bricklayers were bricking our house, some of guys were also firemen. They told us that, at their station, one of the firemen's wife had gone to town, leaving the dryer on. When she returned, their home had burnt down. She had not been cleaning the lint trap. They said you should never leave a dryer running when you can not check on it. Please do not go to bed and leave the dryer on. Something is wrong if a dryer runs all night. Get it checked out or buy a new one. Cheaper than losing a home or you life. (11/05/2008)
Don't check just the lint screen - check the whole thing all the way to the outside. We got our dryer and the venting new ten years ago. Recently my cats chasing one another bumped the hard pipe and knocked part of it down. I was amazed that the inside of the pipe was almost half dryer lint. We replaced all of it and now my dryer doesn't have to be on the nuclear setting to dry the clothes! (11/06/2008)
